Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Foreign Minister, and Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, held a joint press conference, marking the end of the one-day official visit of Clinton to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during which she held a meeting with the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at his farm residence at Rawdhat Khuraim on the outskirts of the city of Riyadh. For his part, Prince Saud Al-Faisal said Clinton had a long in-depth, comprehensive and frank talk with the monarch as customary whoever she meets with him. "I have also met with her and discussed bilateral relations and ways of enhancing them in a number of fields in addition to the continuous coordination and consultations on vital regional and international issues of importance to our two countries", he added. He pointed out that this week coincides with the 65th anniversary of the first meeting between the former leaderships of our nations when late King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, met with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt on the 14th of February 1945. "During that meeting, they laid the foundation for relations between the two countries based on mutual respect, service of joint interests for our two countries and peoples and work together at the United Nations for the achievement of international peace and security", he said. Prince Saud said such bases enabled the two countries to proceed with firm steps towards enhanced relations to confront challenges, overcome problems and move towards a strategic stage according to a constitutional framework and direct contacts between the concerned authorities in the two countries, resulting in the conclusion of a number of agreements and memoranda of understanding covering all scientific, economic, security, and military fields of cooperation. However, among the most noted results of this cooperation is the increasing number of Saudi students on scholarships in the United States from 3,000 over the last few years to about 25,000 in the current time, he said. --More
